


Snaps

by LadyYateXel



Series: Deep Dish Nine [4]
Category: Deep Dish Nine - Fandom, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Deep Dish Nine au, Illustrated Fic, M/M, mild camera phone obsession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:57:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyYateXel/pseuds/LadyYateXel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Julian really likes the camera on his phone. Miles and Garak not so much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tinsnip](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinsnip/gifts).



> Tinsnip gives me a half a sentence about Julian taking photos of Garak with his phone and suddenly I need to do this. 
> 
> Not chronological in terms of the rest of my Deep Dish Nine, just a cute thing from later in a established relationship.
> 
> As always, Deep Dish Nine is a modern day pizza shop AU where everyone is human!

“Miles, hey! No, no, give it back!”

 

“I'm just goin' to look at it!”

 

“I'll show it to you, just give me my phone back!” Julian tries to climb over Miles, but even his long arms can't reach around with Miles fighting him off.

 

“No way! I don't want you sending this to anyone!” Miles holds Julian back easily; he might not be the strongest man in the world, but he _is_ determined (and Julian is primarily composed of bits of pipe cleaner and twigs).

 

The phone hasn't locked him out, and even if it had, Miles knows Julian's 'security' passes just from sitting next to him. He pops open the gallery of photos and Julian strains against Miles' arm in protest. All he's looking for is the dumb photo he caught Julian taking of him sticking his tougue out while playing video games, and then he can delete it and throw the phone back.

 

But he's not the only one Julian's been taking dumb photos of.

 

Yes, there are ridiculous self portraits. And there's a shot of Jadzia trying to look scary behind Mister Sisko. And one of Leeta in the middle of eating a slice of pizza. That blur of light on black might even be Quark.

 

But the rest are pictures of Garak.

 

“Miiiiiles,” Julian whines. “Just give it baaaack.”

 

“No, no, this is just getting good!” He's light and cheery when he pulls the phone further from Julian's reach, but some of these pictures are downright eerie.

 

Garak without his hair perfectly combed? And getting out of the shower?

 

 

Garak eating a bowl of oatmeal?

 

 

Garak resentfully posing with a piece of a broken coffee mug in each hand?

 

 

It's a constant stream of them. It would look like Julian does nothing but take photos of the man if it weren't for the intermittent snapshot of something weird happening on his campus (man dressed as banana, restaurant signs burned out to spell unfortunate things).

 

He flips through them quickly, because Julian is still flailing and clawing at him, but the images are fascinating. Garak doesn't look like this, doesn't behave like this, and yet here is proof that he can smile in a way that doesn't inspire nausea or chills, that he will apparently indulge the little things Julian likes in any number of situations.

  
It's surreal.

 

“Miles, come on, I mean it, give it back. What if I went and looked in yours?”

 

“You wouldn't be able to get into it, because I actually have a proper password on mine. And it's all pictures of Molly and bad wiring.” He flips to the next photo. Garak is smirking or frowning or something puzzling that just says he's both annoyed and amused. He's also clearly lying on a pillow and appears to be missing his shirt. The photo was taken from above.

 

“Augh!” Miles nearly drops the phone in his haste to shove it back into Julian's hands. Julian can't grab it fast enough.

 

“Well it's your own fault, isn't it?!”

 

“You could have warned me!”

 

“ _You_ took my phone!” Julian angrily shoves it into his pocket. “Besides, you'd have wanted to look even more if I'd said they were private.”

 

“Yeah, well... Well.”

 

“Hmmph.” 

 

Miles fidgets. Doesn't really know what to say. “Was that what it looked like?”

 

“As if I'd tell you.”

 

Silence for the better part of a minute. Miles can't get the image of Garak's bare shoulder out of his head, no matter how much he tries to shake it out and blink it away.

 

“Sorry. Shouldn't have done it and won't do it again.”

 

“Damn right.” Julian is still frowning, still glaring at the television in front of them.

 

“Does this mean I should trust you with the one you took of me, or expect everyone to have it within the week?”

 

“Hmm. I think I'll let you sweat about it for a bit.” Julian looks at him and smirks. It looks an awful lot like that last picture of Garak.

 

****

 

“ _Really_?”

 

“You just look cute.”

 

“'Cute' was really not what I was aiming for.”

 

“Could have fooled me. Come on, the longer you talk about it, the longer I'm just going to sit here.”

 

“So now I'm 'cute' _and_ you're going to hold my ribs hostage. I wonder if I shouldn't just tell you to go home.”

 

“That isn't fair. You're just being mean, now.”

 

“ _Ow._ And you are still _bony_.”

 

“That isn't going to change, unfortunately. Now come on, put your hands down and just smile.”

 

“And what if I don't?”

 

“Then I'll go be bony at my place and leave you here all alone.”

 

“I have two conditions.”

 

“Are you really in a position to negotiate?”

 

“You share it with no one, and you do not make a habit of this.”

 

“Oh, of course not.”

 

“Fine.”

 

“No, no, you have to actually smile.”

 

“I am smiling.”

 

“No you are not, you're-”

 

“Get your hand out of my face!”

 

“It's like you don't _want_ me in bed with you.”

 

“Oh, no, how terrible.”

 

“There, that's a good face.”

 

“You've got to be kidding.”

 

“No, look, you're cute.”

 

“If you insist. May I have my ribs back now?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

 


	2. Selfies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julian sends ridiculous self-portraits to Garak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A gift with love for my dear friend Tinsnip, who liked the first installment of this silliness. :)

 

“Here, see? It's the same sort of architecture.” With Julian's head resting on his leg, Garak holds the phone over Julian's face so he can compare the photo there to the one in his textbook. The arches are similar, and Julian “Mmm-hmm”'s and nods as much as can while nearly in Garak's lap. Until he sees something eerily familiar flicker by in the bottom of the screen.

 

“Oh, hold on – what's that?” He flops the textbook onto his chest and tries to paw at the screen.

 

“Not relevant to the discussion at hand.” Garak pulls the phone back toward his chest, and tries to shut it off, but Julian reaches up and and manages to snatch it away.

 

“Relevant my ass. What-” He flips to the next photo in the slideshow and sees a familiar scene. Leeta's birthday party at a Quark's. The photo is Julian wearing a Ferengi head wrap that makes his head resemble a cupcake.

 

 

Julian sits up and Garak exhales so forcefully it might be a snort. Miraculously, Garak does not demand the return of his phone, though his eyebrow betrays his annoyance.

 

He'd thought it was was funny when he sent it, but as Julian looks at it months after the fact, it's awfully unflattering, and really ridiculous and just... “Why do you still have this?”

 

Garak shrugs and takes a sip of his tea. “I have the storage space, why wouldn't I?”

 

“But it's terrible!” Julian laughs, zooming into traces of his friends' faces in the background. They're blurry and indistinct, which is probably all the better for them, if they looked anything like Julian that night.

 

“You're the one who sent it.”

 

“Well, yes, but _because_ it was terrible. I look like a mushroom. I'm getting rid of this.”

 

“You go ahead and try that.”

 

Garak's phone has a password for nearly every function. Julian has never seen a phone that required a password to delete a photo, but until Garak, he'd also never seen a phone that required a password to make a call, send a text, set an alarm, or use the camera once the initial password had been entered.

 

The inevitable password box prompts Julian with a flashing cursor and keyboard full of pixely Cardassian letters. Julian sighs. _I don't even know how this language works on paper, let alone a keyboard._ There's no hope for him to spell anything at all, let alone the one word that would let him delete the photo.

 

“How do you even have a password set for this? Doesn't it get annoying when you're using it?”

 

“I made some modifications to the firmware and the operating system.” Garak tucks his legs up onto on the sofa and buries his feet between the cushions. All his attention remains with his tea and his tiny book, though he adds, “And I don't live on my phone the way you do,” with some obvious distaste.

 

Julian kicks Garak's hip. It's not rough, just enough to substitute as a shove. “Is this _generation gap_ also why you don't take selfies?”

 

Garak cringes and sets his cup on the table beside him. “Oh, really, now.”

 

Julian isn't sure if it was the reference to Garak's age or the term 'selfie' that caused the reaction, but either way, he's satisfied.

 

And then he flips through more photos.

 

The funny thing about Garak's personal items is that they aren't personal unless you dig. His laptop appears to be a factory demo until you find just the right folders. His phone looks and acts new until you bypass three levels of passwords. On Julian's phone, there's barely a security squiggle and the background changes weekly – funny cat pictures, Miles with broken oven parts, Jadzia and Ezri posing with a pizza box fort, pictures of people in chicken suits on campus, funny signs, movie posters. Garak's background is generic photos of plants that probably came with the phone. His gallery is mostly unidentifiable neutral locations with sunsets and moons and other inoffensive, and attractive, but very bland, nature. The one thing that comes close to giving him away is a single photo of the swooping silhouette of Cardassia City, and Julian can't be sure that didn't come with the phone.

 

Garak's phone finally becomes a little more like him in a (password protected) subfolder under the stiff generic gallery. Close up swatches of fabric, pictures of his seasonal shop window displays, snapshots of store mannequins, non-commerical photos of Cardassia, and some other photos that are recognizably local.

 

And pictures of Julian.

 

Every one is a picture that Julian sent in a moment of irreverence, irresponsibility, or inebriation. Thus, every one is awful. After Julian wearing a Ferengi head curtain comes four pictures of the sky, one objectively non-awful photo of Julian from the day he got to ride the new tram to visit the new part of the hospital, and then a video.

 

_Oh, no, oh no, ohnoohnoohno, I do not remember sending any videos, please don't let this be a nude, drunken declaration of love._

 

Julian taps play, and to his incredible surprise, the video does not require a password. To his equally incredible relief, the video is also not of him, and no one is naked. It begins in relative black, but soon the pixels settle, and the light evens out to reveal Quark, arms crossed, standing behind his bar.

 

“Go on,” Garak's voice says from the tiny speakers.

 

Quark sighs heavily and recites with an eyeroll and dripping resentment: “I, Quark, do hereby grant Mister Garak two free drinks from my bar for fixing the Dabo Girl costumes in today's emergency situation.”

 

“And?”

 

“And what? I'm not giving you a drop more, the costumes aren't worth that much.”

 

“The date, please.”

 

“Oh, come on. Ain't your little gizmo recording that?”

 

“You will no doubt accuse me of tampering with it later. Please continue with the date.”

 

“It's Tuesday.”

 

“Mister Quark.”

 

“Tuesday, May Fifth,” Quark grumbles.

 

“That will do nicely, thank you.”

 

The video cuts to black and Julian laughs. “Really?”

 

“You have to take every precaution with Quark.”

 

“Did you ever get your drinks?”

 

“Not yet. I'm waiting until he thinks I've forgotten."  Garak sets his book aside, and flutters his eyelashes innocently. "Would you care to join me when that happens?”

 

It's ridiculous. It's also adorable in a very particularly Garak sort of way.  Julian can't help smiling. “I'd love to.”

 

Garak grins sweetly and holds out his hand. “Would you also care to return that now?”

 

“Oh, no, no, nono!” Julian pulls the phone up over his shoulder and away from now-frowning Garak. “Quark was just a detour. I have to see what other horrors await me in here.”

 

Horror comes next in the form of Julian frowning dramatically at work with stickers from Jadzia on his face. She had promised to do dish duty for him and let him get home early if he sent the photo to Garak.  Suddenly, the extra hour he gained that day did not seem worth it.

 

 

 

“Ohmygod, whydoyouhavethis?”

 

“Again, I submit that _you send these to me_.” Garak clicks his tongue, and flips a page in his book. “Just _imagine_ how Mister O'Brien must feel with you taking shots of him all the time.”

 

Julian feels some mild heat around his ears, but presses on. Three sunsets later, there he is again, in a grocery store, trying to imitate a somewhat crooked potato that looks as though it has a face.

 

 

“Ugh,  _really?!”_

 

Garak puts his hand over his heart and looks out across the apartment, adopting a dramatic narrative tone. “Said the poor tailor, assaulted with that image during his lunch hour.”

 

Another kick. “Why don't you just _delete them_ , then?”

 

“Perhaps I'm fond of them.”

 

“I never meant for you to keep them. I thought maybe you'd just laugh and send me something dumb back and that would be the end of it. And now I find out not only do you not send me anything back, you _keep_ the awful stuff I send!”

 

Garak is unmoved. “Alas.”

 

More photos, more photos, though no more that are him, mercifully. “Maybe you ought to just start _taking_ pictures of me like a normal person.”

 

“Shall I ambush you straight out of the shower, then?”

 

“Ha. Ha.”  Julian frowns at his photos marring the otherwise scenic gallery,  and makes one last swiped attempt to delete them. Unsuccessful, he sighs, and hands Garak's phone back.

 

“Why, _thank you_.” Garak looks fondly at the screen.

 

“I'm going to be very careful about what I send you from now on.”

 

Dramatic pouting as Garak holds the phone to his chest. “Oh, I hope not.”

 

Julian shakes his head and retrieves his textbook. He may have to apologize to Miles later for the funny photo of him with the toaster.

 

_Garak mentioned Miles and not himself when he talked about unflattering photos. I can't believe he passed up an opportunity to complain about the oatmeal picture again._

 

The photos Julian takes of Garak let Julian enjoy the curious rarity of Garak being less than perfectly presented.  He keeps them because they're such a novelty, because he's already memorized the public Garak and the private one is still a thrill. They show a person Garak isn't keen on displaying, and aside from one accidental glance from Miles, Julian keeps the photos to himself. No matter how much he loves his collection of unflattering photos, he loves Garak himself – with his elegance and his privacy - significantly more.

 

And that's where Julian lets the idea his saved self portraits really sink in. The photos of him are awful, childish nonsense - absolutely the sorts of things Julian would normally expect to inspire rolling eyes and swift deletion. Instead, they're saved in Garak's 'real' photo folder with things like fabric, stars, and Cardassia City. In a backwards sort of way, it's really rather sweet that Garak has hideous photos of his boyfriend stored lovingly under password protection.

 

Garak takes great pains to hide any parts of him that might be big, glaring, awkward, or less than ideal. Julian aggressively shares his with everyone he knows.

 

_Perhaps these are different solutions to the same problem._

 

The idea that Garak loves his ugly photos of Julian as much as Julian loves his 'ugly' photos of Garak makes Julian smile into his textbook, curl his toes into the cushions.

 

“Look, my dear, I'm about to be _normal_.”

 

“Huh?”

 


End file.
